The journey of a vegetarian over two years with only three pairs of shoes!

December 10, 2009

Paradise

When I was in Peace Corps training I remember a volunteer
coming and talking to us about how she deals with living in a village.I don’t remember much of the talk but I
do remember her saying “If someone asks me to go somewhere with them or do
something with them, I always try to go because what I have planned can always
be done at a later time.”I
remember thinking how odd an outlook that had to have been and how it sounded
like my worst nightmare.I like
planning things and I get easily stressed if my plans have to be changed at the
last moment.Never the less I
tried my best to work her outlook on life into my service.

Now since I have been back I have found that motto amazing
to live by.I’m not saying that I
throw everything out the window the second someone suggests plans to me or that
I say yes to every invitation.I
have just learned to be more open minded to spontaneous plans.I guess it helps that I am unemployed
and like to travel?Well that’s a
whole other story.

So as some of you might know I am in Hawaii right now.I know I know I lead a hard life.I wasn’t planning on coming back here
so soon but the cards just fell into place.You see my very good friend Emily from New Orleans needed a
dog sitter for her neurotic dog and she didn’t know anyone in Hawaii that she
trusted enough to leave him with for a week.She knows my status of constant travel so she asked me if I
would be willing to come and watch him for a week while she was away.Of course I leap at the chance.Trap Jack is a great dog even though he
has issues, like licking his skin off, and I wasn’t about to go and pass up a
trip to Hawaii when I’m not tied down to a job.Lucky for me I have a Mom that supports me in my wanderlust
because she knows how precious this time is and that this kind of freedom will
not come around again in the near future.Dog sitting is why I came and the perfection is why I’m staying.When I mentioned to Rob that I would be
going to Hawaii again I asked him to come because he had never been and anything
is better than St Louis in the winter.He said no right away like I knew he would but then magically a few
weeks later he changed his mind.So now instead of staying for a little over a week I’m going to be
staying two weeks to hang out with Rob and introduce him to all that is
wonderful about whale season.

Rob is getting here on Saturday the same day that Emily gets
back so for right now I’m by myself with TJ.But since Emily is a great friend she introduced me to a
couple of her friends before leaving so I would have people to hang out with
and drive me around.Oh forgot
that part of the story!Emily has
a car that she offered as part of the dog sitting package deal.I could stay at her place, eat her
food, and use her car.The only
catch is that her car is a stick.I don’t know how to drive stick.The first day I was here was also the day she was leaving.She gave me a three-hour lesson on how
to drive stick and I can say that I now understand the basics and have driven
it around quite a bit.That being
said I wouldn’t feel comfortable driving it anywhere near other cars, people,
animals, or even curvy roads.So the idea that I would have to deal with this car that I can barely
drive was kind of terrifying.Lucky for me two of her friends that I am friends with live right up the
road with plenty of parking and they can drive stick.So we left the car there and Emily can get it when she gets
back.

The only thing this means is that I don’t have a car right
now.Totally not a big deal.Emily lives right by the beach and food
and a mall so I could live here for a while without needing a car.

This whole trip came about because Emily asked me to come
and now I feel like all my activities here are coming about the same way.When I knew that I would be here in
December I knew I wanted to go see some surf competitions on the north
shore.I’m never here at this time
of year and if we are we are usually on Maui.Well upon hearing this Emily called her friend Abdulla and
asked him if he was going to the north shore.Turns out the next day there was the possibility of this
huge competition that has only been held 7 times in the last 25 years because
the conditions need to be perfect.It’s called the Eddie Aikau and it happens in Waimea Bay.Abdulla said that they were going to
head out there at 3am the next day and if I wanted to come with he would pick
me up.It took me about a minute
to decide that this was an amazing opportunity.So the next day I waited on a dark street corner to be
picked up by a guy I had never met to go to an epic surf invitational.

Words can’t even describe how much fun I had.We drove for about an hour and then
another hour to find parking.We
had to walk about a mile and a half to the beach and then wait there on the
sand in the dark for the officials to decide if the contest was on or off.Have you ever wondered what about 2,000
white middle class boys from California look like?Well now I know.We sat watching these amazing waves in the moonlight and the sun rose
over the mountains behind us.Everyone
was crossing their fingers that the waves would be big and clean so that the
Eddie would be a go.The waves
have to be at least 20ft and the break has to be clean for the contest to be a
go.That’s why there have only
been 7 of them before.As the sun
rose 20 or so surfers went out to check the break and give their input on if it
should be a go or not.We all held
our breath.

Only about 28 surfers are invited to this contest and NO
GIRLS!Kind of crazy and sad.But as soon as the contest was a go the
waves went crazy.Abdulla had a
much better camera than I did so he was in charge of all the wave pics.I will post them as soon as I get
them.For me the best part of the
contest was watching Kelly Slater (who is like my huge celebrity crush) charge
this 30ft face and surf three breaks all the way to the beach and score a 98
out of 100.It was the craziest
thing I have ever seen.We stayed
through about three heats and then hit the slow road home because some of the
people we were with needed to go to class.Oh can I just say that no one in Oahu went to work or school
that morning?The entire island
stopped to watch this event.

Anyways so the group I was with was awesome.We went out to late breakfast because
we had all been up since 3am and then drove around the east coast of the island
because the traffic was sooo bad going west.I had such a great time and the people I was with couldn’t
have been cooler.Its funny how
when you do cool things you meet cool people…

I knew Emily’s friend Hiro before but this was the first
time I met his roommate Al.Turns
out that Al is all about bringing me around the island.Last night he invited me to go Polynesian
rowing with him.It was
amazing.He is part of a club that
actually competes but they let newbies come along for the ride anytime they
want.There were sooo many people
there and Al left me to go with the more experienced group.So I was with 12 people I didn’t know paddling
a canoe down a dark canal under the stars.It was kinda perfect.We went about 2 miles to the bay and then came back.It was hard but I had a blast.Met a ton of cool people and did
something I had never tried before.

So in summation of this really long post I’m having a great
time and meeting a ton of cool people.I will post more when Rob gets here on Saturday!